The Fall of the House of Gryffen
The Fall of the House of Gryffen was the seventh episode of Series 1 of K9. It provided details about the circumstances under which Alistair Gryffen lost his wife and two children, an event that had hitherto only been teased in the first episode. Synopsis Darius, Starkey and Jorjie spend a very spooky night at the Gryffen mansion. Plot As a storm rages outside, Darius and K9 play chess against Starkey and Jorjie, and lose. Jorjie gets a call from her mother who wants her home, but agrees to let her stay. Something shatters upstairs. Gryffen sends Starkey to investigate. The STM activates, and Starkey sees a boy for a split second. He tells Gryffen he was a "skinny blonde boy around seven or eight." Gryffen runs to look. The others doubt what Starkey saw. Jorjie wonders why Gryffen ran off. Gryffen returns to say the storm is intensifying over the Channel. As he leaves, Starkey tells them years ago Gryffen and his family went on holiday and they were taken from him. As the storm grows louder Jorjie predicts her mother will be calling again, which she does. When Drake asks who she's talking to, she hangs up, surprising Jorjie as that's her "trick". They hear scary giggling and Starkey suggests they investigate. Darius, obviously frightened, is the last to get up. As they leave, he closes the door. The giggling is heard again as the STM powers up. Gryffen suddenly hears a voice calling his name. As Starkey, Jorjie and K9 look around, they spot the boy and an equally odd-looking girl. K9 scans them and finds no signs of life. They are "non-corporeal entities". They vanish. K9 tells Starkey and Jorjie to go while he stands guard. They spot the girl, who runs, and then the boy, who also runs away, both giggling. As Jorjie searches, Darius appears, startling her. Starkey and K9 search. Starkey asks why K9 stays when he could go through the STM to some random place. K9 tells him that he stays for the same reason Starkey does. They are needed. Starkey again spots the boy, who runs away. K9 detects nothing. As Darius and Jorjie go on, Darius holds Jorjie's hand, which he calls "tiny" and "freezing". She says she's not holding his hand. Darius sees he has some strange slime on his hand. As Starkey tries to find the boy, a mysterious hand grabs him. It's Darius scaring him, and Jorjie. They find the recording of Gryffen's family. K9 is annoyed at them ignoring him. Starkey and Jorjie recognise Gryffen's son and daughter as the children they saw. Darius doesn't believe it, saying they are Gryffen's children, Jacob and Mina. He says it's the last video taken of them. As the storm strikes again, K9 tells the kids to stop being so scared at the flashes. Darius recognises the voice of Eleanor, Gryffen's wife. They find the children. Darius recognises them with a shock. K9 realises they only exist as light; Starkey reasons that if they are dead, they can't harm him. The children charge up energy and fire on Starkey, Darius and Jorjie, knocking them unconscious. K9 fires on them, but his photon beam has no effect, merely passing through them. K9 thinks they can only affect carbon-based life, but they disrupt his circuits, knocking him out as well. Eleanor suddenly appears to Gryffen. She says he cannot touch her. She is too fragile. She tells him his children must complete a task before they join him to make him eternally happy. Darius and Jorjie are trapped on tables near the STM, which is absorbing energy. As Darius calls out for K9, he wakes up, locked in a closet with Starkey. He fails to unlock the door with his "jimmy key", which is covered in slime. K9 tells Starkey he needs to power his photon burst, before he tries to blow through the door. Darius and Jorjie call out to Gryffen. He tries to remember Starkey and K9, but his memories of them are being erased. Gryffen goes into the STM room and tells the children to stop playing. When Jorjie and Darius call him, he asks who they are. Gryffen is in a trance. They try to wake him. K9 suggests to Starkey that with his attempts to retrieve them, Gryffen has warped space-time into their shapes. He blasts the door. They go to the STM room, where K9 tells Starkey to go round the STM vortex while he distracts the children. Darius and Jorjie try to snap Gryffen out of it, but he is mesmerised by Eleanor. K9's energy is depleted and he is disabled by the children. Starkey tries to stop Darius and Jorjie from being pulled into the vortex. K9 reactivates and warns Gryffen they are merely "echoes" of his family and Jorjie tells him that for them to fully materialise, they must absorb life force. K9 tells Starkey to get to Gryffen as he is the closest thing he has to a son. Eleanor tries to silence him, but he persists. Darius and Jorjie try to help Starkey convince him as well. Starkey tells Gryffen that his family wouldn't want to harm people. This lets Gryffen see what they are. Eleanor refuses to accept this, but as the storm passes, she realises she and the children aren't wanted and they leave. Jorjie gets a call from June, who says she will pick her up. When Starkey asks Gryffen if he will be okay, he says that he will be as he was. The team cheer themselves up by joking around. Story notes For a reason as yet unknown, instead of airing on 17 April as scheduled, Jaws of Orthrus was broadcast and this episode aired on 12 June. Production errors *In the scene in which K9 and Starkey are locked in the closet, several shots are reversed, and the "K9" logo on K9's flank is backwards. Continuity *If you'd like to talk about narrative problems with this story — like plot holes and things that seem to contradict other stories — please go to this episode's discontinuity discussion. *The story arc of the loss of Gryffen's family started in the first episode. *Darius (with K9 on his team) plays chess against Starkey; K9's previous incarnation played this game in TV: The Sun Makers. *Gryffen questioning Starkey about the boy he saw is reminiscent of the Tenth Doctor questioning Donna Noble about the woman she saw in TV: Turn Left. *The Halloween lamps used by the team to walk through the house (as the lights are flickering) resemble gravity globes. *When Starkey finds his key covered in slime, he remarks, "Always with the slime!" He was squirted with Jixen tracking slime twice in TV: Regeneration. Home video releases This episode is featured in the following DVD sets: *Series One complete box set, released in Australia on 29 September 2010. *A "vanilla" DVD called Alien Avatar, containing The Fall of the House of Gryffen, Jaws of Orthrus, Dream-Eaters, Curse of Anubis, Oroborus and Alien Avatar, released in Australia on 29 September 2010. *''K-9: Series 1: Volume 1'', containing episodes 1–12, released in the UK on 31 January 2011. *''K9: Ultimate Collectors Edition'', containing the full first series, scheduled for release in the UK on 11 June 2011. Dvd-k9complete-1-.jpg|Complete Boxset (Region 4, Australia) K9 Alien Avatar Australia DVD-1-.jpg|Alien Avatar (Region 4, Australia) K9 Series 1 Vol 1 DVD.jpg|Series 1, Volume 1 (Region 0, sold in UK and US) K9 Ultimate Collectors Edition DVD-1-.jpg|"Ultimate Collectors Edition" (Region 2, UK) External links *TheDoctorWhoSite.co.uk *Official K9 web site Category:Episodes Category:Stories set in the 2050s Category:Series 1 (K9) stories Category:Stories set in London Category:K9 television stories